H D - S E L E C T

A view on HD
DVDs by Yunda Eddie Feng

Introduction:
Hello, Beaver readers! I became a serious cineophile in
1994 when I saw Schindler's Liston my birthday. I
realized that movies weren't just for fun--they could be
serious art, too (even mainstream popcorn flicks if
they're made with skill). Although I have a BA in
English, I went to grad school for an MA in Film
Studies. There, I met my mentor Dr. Warren Buckland, who
shares my interest in Steven Spielberg's artistry
(Spielberg and art aren't mutually exclusive). I helped
edit Dr. Buckland's book Directed by Steven Spielberg:
Poetics of the Contemporary Hollywood Blockbuster. I also
contributed a chapter to Dr. Buckland's forthcoming
anthology of essays about "complex storytelling"
movies--movies that avoid classical linear storylines in
favor of temporal disruptions, unreliable narrators, metatheatrical/"self-aware" references, etc.

Beaver readers know that I’m a big fan of director Paul Greengrass.
I feel that Bloody Sunday, The Bourne Supremacy, and
United 93 indicate that Greengrass is possibly the future of
Western cinema. Yet, as much as I love the Jason Bourne character,
I am first in line to point out Bourne 3’s flaws. I am not
nitpicking about the hyper camerawork and editing. Rather, the
third effort clearly shows that the filmmakers ran out of time and
resorted to repeating old tricks instead of generating fresh
innovations as The Bourne Identity and The Bourne
Supremacy did.

In Entertainment Weekly’s feature article about the third
movie, lead Matt Damon revealed that the script wasn’t ready when
the production began. New pages arrived on the set every day, and
frequently, much of what was shot was completely discarded as
shooting continued. With a budget north of $175 million, Bourne
3 cost much more than its predecessors. The filmmakers had to
come up with some semblance of a coherent plot to finish the movie
for August 2007. Obviously, they looked to the previous two movies
for salvation.

For starters, let’s look at the Waterloo station sequence. Many
reviewers and audiences buzzed about the tension and choreography,
but it is merely an expanded version of the Alexanderplatz sequence
in Bourne 2. In both movies, Bourne guides another person by
phone to elude government agents, and there’re a lot of bodies
shuffling on and off a bus. This was a new Jason Bourne skill in
the second movie, but it’s old hat in the third.

The car chase in New York City is also old hat. The car chase in
Bourne 1 made clever use of Parisian geography, and the car
chase in Bourne 2 was edited and scored to create a genuine
sense of desperation. The car chase in Bourne 3 is
frequently a scenario-for-scenario re-tread of the car chase in
Bourne 2. Both chases end with a car perpendicular to another,
pushing the horizontal vehicle into a concrete pillar. Both chases
end with Bourne bracing himself right before the crash, with Bourne
staggering out of his car while pointing a gun at his enemy, and
with Bourne regarding his injured nemesis before walking away. The
car chase in Bourne 2 revealed something about the
protagonist’s mind set. The car chase in Bourne 3 indicated
that the moviemakers were too frazzled to find another way to end a
car chase.

Disappointingly, Bourne 3 is a return to conventional
classical storytelling. Most mainstream movies have dual plots (an
A Story and a B Story), frequently with the secondary plot focused
on two characters falling in love. In action movies, this results
in the male hero dragging around the female love interest, rescuing
her, or being hampered by her when she’s used against him.
Bourne 1 dealt with this problem by giving Marie enough sense to
stay low and out of sight while Bourne was fighting (see the
showdown with Clive Owen’s character). Bourne 2 threw out
this convention by killing off the female love interest, so instead
of an oft-used secondary plot, we saw Bourne trying to make amends
for some of his past actions. Bourne 3 hamfistedly shoves a
love story into the series again by insinuating that Bourne and
Nicky Parsons had a romantic relationship prior to the events in
Bourne 1. The movie ends with cuts between Bourne floating in a
river and Nicky with a goofy grin on her face. The goofy grin is
out of step with the grim atmosphere of the third movie.

At this point, it sounds like I’m being hard on Bourne 3.
Actually, I’m not; my assessment is that the movie still succeeds
despite its severe handicaps. I won’t gloss over its weaknesses
despite my appreciation of its other elements.

Not all links to the previous movies are faults. For example, near
the end of the movie, Bourne uses a Brazilian passport to enter the
United States. On the intercom at an airport, Pamela Landy’s
message for Bourne is, “Gilberto de Piento, Gilberto de Piento, your
party is waiting for you.” “Gilberto de Piento” is the name that
appears on a Brazilian passport shown briefly when Bourne is
rummaging through his safe deposit box in Bourne 1. The
umbrella operation run by the villains is called Operation
Blackbriar; the word “Blackbriar” is used by Ward Abbot in a Senate
hearing towards the end of Bourne 1. Towards the end of
Bourne 3, Bourne says to a fellow spy, “Look at what they make
you give,” echoing Clive Owen in the first outing. Visually, the
trilogy turns full circle as the first shot of Bourne in Bourne 1
and the last shot of Bourne in Bourne 3 are shots of him
floating in the water. These links are connective tissues that help
create a sense of cohesion amongst the three movies. In this
regard, the Bourne trilogy creates a complete universe as
opposed to the James Bond and Mission: Impossible franchises,
which are comprised of unrelated incidents. A viewer is rewarded
for paying attention to detail and for following the journey.

The movie’s wit is evident after a fight in Madrid. Spies are on
their way to capture Bourne, and to create a diversion, Bourne calls
the Spanish police, saying, “I hear gunfire. I think they’re
Americans.” He then fires a few rounds from his gun.

At the end of the day, Bourne 3 is an action movie, and its
greatest contribution to cinema is...yes, an action sequence.
Bourne 1’s action showcase is arguably the American embassy
sequence (where we see Bourne’s smarts when he rips a fire escape
map off the wall to plan his escape). Bourne 2’s action
showcase is the Moscow car chase. Bourne 3’s action showcase
is the Tangier motorcycle-to-foot chase. After the awkward hint
about Bourne and Nicky’s past, the chase partially redeems Nicky’s
presence by having her demonstrate her resourcefulness. As the Arab
agent pursues her, Nicky dismantles her mobile phone to leave a
trail for Bourne to follow. As Bourne runs across rooftops, he
grabs laundry off of clotheslines to protect his hands as he
clambers over ledges with embedded glass shards. The propulsive
momentum culminates in a bravura camera shot where a cameraman
literally leapt off of a building right behind a stunt man who
crashes through a window into a cramped apartment. The ensuing
fistfight conjures the same level of desperation as the Moscow car
chase.

I am ready for another Bourne if Greengrass and Damon re-up.
However, I hope that they head into production with a completed
script that offers a fresh look at the character. I really don’t
want to see Bourne bracing himself right before a car crashes into a
concrete pillar again.

Video:

This is a mostly dark 2.40:1 1080p image, and grain is clearly
prevalent. However, the grain is not intrusive and is simply a part
of the structure of the photochemical process. The grain never
looks like noise, unlike the grain in Ocean’s Thirteen. The
SD DVD picture quality is already very high, but the HD DVD’s
sharpness, detail, and clarity are frequently breathtaking. On HD
DVD, Bourne 3 easily matches Harry Potter 5 as
reference-quality video.

Audio:

The first two Bourne movies appeared on HD DVD without
lossless audio, but Bourne 3 gets the Dolby TrueHD 5.1
English upgrade in addition to the expected DD+ 5.1 English track.
The jittery sound mix complements the visual style quite well. The
sound engineers used fluttery stereo effects to create a sense of
imbalance, so all of the channels are highly active. Despite my
reservations about the car chase, you can use it as demo audio
material. The subwoofer is used primarily for atmospheric and music
effects, though it gives the plentiful gunshots adequate punch.

You can also watch the movie with a DD+ 5.1 French dub. Optional
English SDH and French subtitles support the audio.

Extras:

Paul Greengrass contributed an audio commentary to this DVD
release. While he does discuss the technical aspects of shooting,
most of his comments are anecdotal observations about the movie’s
themes and personal responses to the film as if he were a
third-party viewer.

Next up is a collection of deleted scenes running a little more than
twelve minutes.

“Man on the Move: Jason Bourne” is a five-part overview of
production logistics in Europe and North Africa.

“Rooftop Pursuit” and “Planning the Punches” focus on the long chase
in Tangier.

“Driving School” and “New York Chase” take viewers inside the cars
that were used for the car chase.

--HD DVD extras--

Universal has encoded three U Control interactive modes for this
movie.

1) Picture-in-Picture is a collection of interviews and
behind-the-scenes footage. It’s fascinating seeing simultaneously
how a scene was shot versus how it was assembled for the finished
product, though some of the material basically repeats what we see
in the featurettes.

2) Blackbriar Files is a collection of graphics and text that
provide additional information about the story, the characters, and
the movie’s diegetic world.

3) “Get More Info”: Unfortunately, the HD DVD is being used to flog
Volkswagen’s Touareg SUV. On several Universal DVDs and HD DVDs
released in 2007, there’ve been featurettes “presented by”
Volkswagen. I guess the hard sell logically had to extend to a U
Control featurette all by itself, though mercifully, the Touareg
icon appears only once during the movie (the NYC car chase).

“Be Bourne Spy Training” is a trivia game that you can play while
watching clips from the movie. This is a fairly difficult test.
Some of the questions refer to the previous two movies. On my sole
try, I got 12 out of 20 correct. Curiously, the software told me
that I am qualified to be a spy, though I’m sure real-world spies
would not be given such a low entry barrier. You can play the game
without being connected to the Internet, but if you’re connected to
Universal’s portal, then you can post your scores for the whole
world to see.

When connected to the Internet, you can also see other online
content, but for now, you just get news updates and previews. Maybe
you can buy the Touareg from the portal one day.

--Miscellaneous--

An insert booklet explains how to use the HD DVD’s interactive features,
including the Internet-based extras.

The SD DVD side is identical to the SD DVD-only release (reviewed
HERE).